2 firms qualified to join Comelec machine bidding

MANILA, Philippines - Two bidders have qualified to bid for the contract to supply the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with voter verification system (VVS) to be pilot-tested by the 2016 polls.

Based on a resolution of the Comelec’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), only Indra Sistemas S.A. and the joint venture of Safran Morpho and Comfac Corp. were eligible to bid for the P727.2-million project.

However, BAC said Safran Morpho and Comfac Corp. had submitted the “lowest calculated bid” of P470,910,720.

The bid offer of Indra was P581,672,000.

The BAC had directed the technical working group (TWG) to subject the joint venture to post-qualification evaluation to determine whether the bidder concerned complies with and is responsive to all the requirements and conditions set for the project.

The post-qualification shall verify, validate and ascertain all statements made and documents submitted by the foregoing bidders using non-discretionary criteria as stated in the bidding documents.

The TWG will check if the joint venture met the legal and technical requirements.

As a policy, if Safran Morpho and Comfac Corp. failed in the post-qualification evaluation, TWG will then review the bid offer of Indra Sistemas.

The VVS will be installed at the polling precincts and they will run through the biometrics records to determine if a vote is eligible to vote in 2016.

The machines will be partnered with the 23,000 optical mark reader (OMR) machines that the Comelec is acquiring to augment the old PCOS machines.